America’s Favorite Sham Marriage

Get ready to feign shock and outrage. A new book by author Ronald Kessler alleges that Bill Clinton has a secret girlfriend, code named “Energizer,” who often visits him at the Clintons’ estate while Hillary is away. In Kessler’s book, The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of Presidents, Secret Service agent reveal the hidden lives of presidents. He stayed up all night to think of that subtitle.

Anyone who lived through the ‘90’s has to be pretty underwhelmed by accusations of infidelity by our former Saxophonist-in-Chief. By the time Slick Willy had weathered his Congressional impeachment hearings it was apparent that the average American cared far less about the President’s personal life than about his ability to perform the duties of the office, which – even most Conservatives now agree – was top-notch.

And yet, there’s little doubt that allegations like this one and shadowy characters like “Energizer” will provide ammo for the ‘publicans if Hill Dog decides to make a run for the Office in 2016. All nostalgia aside, who wants to relive the scandals of the 1990’s? Hell, I don’t even like watching Friends re-runs that focus on Ross and Rachel.

I can’t be the only one who takes it as a given that Bill and Hillary’s marriage is more akin to a business arrangement at this point. The two are like old investment partners who are bound by a mutual desire for power and success. It’s worked out well for them so far. And everybody knows that an unmarried person – man or woman – will not be elected President any time soon.

So do we care if our politicians contrive their personal lives purely to maintain the politically correct image? Most people would probably answer “Yes.” After all, it’s dishonest. And if there’s one thing that we will never ever tolerate from our politicians, it’s dishonesty. I mean, a dishonest politician, who’s ever heard of such a thing? Downright scandalous.

But it seems like a contradiction to say we shouldn’t care about our President’s personal life as long as he’s doing a good job, but we should care about how genuine that personal life actually is. If America should be above poking into the salacious details of the Prez’s marriage, then we also ought to rise above examining the propriety of that marriage to begin with. In a way, a bachelor[ette] President would make things a hell of a lot simpler.

So the Clintons have a sham marriage. I’m comfortable with that. In my book, whether Hillary would make a good 45th POTUS has nothing to do with whether Bill is in bed with another woman. Still, it wouldn’t hurt her chances for Hillary to learn to play the sax.